" the lion sprang --- and --- landed on me --- I scramhled round with my left arm still in his mouth --- and started pummeling him with my rightfisl --- he have me afinalshake and then
--- disappeared into the grass."
"One is just as likely to he made into sausage-meat as the poor little elephants. Several
times I was nearly trampled on: and whether accidentally or malice prepense would make but
little difference as to one's appreciation of being mashed into pulp."
This is an entertainment, of the none-too-serious kind, where the object is fast and furious fun rather than a precise and detailed simulation of big game hunting. In this game the players are either hunters or savage beasts of the African interior, which many would contend pretty much amounts to the same-thing. It is set in the 'Classic' period of the late Victorian Edwardian era, where most hunting was done on foot in rough country, under a strict code of gentlemanly conduct. The hunters can be anything from Masai el-Moran with spears and shields to Europeans with expensive precision rifles by the best London gunmakers, with everything from trade muskets to Boer gas-pipe elephant guns in between.
They can range in skill and enthusiasm from the Indian plate layers who provided so many satisfying meals for the famous Maneaters of Tsavo, to the boldest Old Africa Hand (you know, the utterly loony one who the old Walruses reminisce over at the the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, and point to the remains of his chewed solar topee hanging over the bar). On the other side we have not only the obvious lions, elephants, rhinos etc, but also the odd skulking black mamba, peckish crocodile and sex-crazed male ostrich, It's that sort of game. It isn't all that accurate in any way, shape or form, especially as the wildlife has a much better chance than seems to have been the case in reality, despite all the hunters' guff about it being 'kill or be killed'.
What You'll need:
A) Model hunters and animals. Each player represents A) a hunter and gunbearer, or B) a cunning beast (or two or three). Actually, the player might have a group of 'less effective but more coordinated' men, like a squad of soldiers or a party of African warriors with spears people who can work together, but who don't have the personal firepower of a .50 calibre double rifle from Rigby of London. An umpire is helpful to control the less interesting animals (herds of wildebeeste etc) who generally run away from danger, though player common sense can serve for this. Umpires are very useful for making up random nastiness, though -
A vicious variant would be to allow each player both a hunting group and an ferocious animal, so that each player would get the chance to stalk his friends. Naturally it would be forbidden to use your own animal as a deliberately easy target for the hunter!
B) A model landscape, i epresentative of the wilder regions of the Dark Continent - possibly rain forest for the Comlo and coastal western Africa, long grass ani heavy thorn scrub for east and central Africa. Marsh, streams, quicksand etc to taste. As a rule, heavy cover aids the animals. Open terrain the hunters (I expect you already knew that). The table can be of any convenient size, since it is the degree of cover rather than the theoretical range of weapons that really matters--if you want to show heavy jungle, you probably don't need a lot of table space
Ground and time scales are pretty much insignificant, though if pressed I'd say that 1" is about 10 yards, sort-of-maybe, probably less close-up and more further away. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
An alternative would be to play a 'double-blind' game, where each player has a small table display, upon which his figures are placed together with any terrain and other figures that are directly visible from the character's position. The umpire, using a master table (or simply a drawn plan of the whole area) plots the movement of men and animals according to the players' wishes, then updates their individual displays according to developments, Thus the player's own figures essentially stay in place while the terrain moves past them (like a racingcar simulator) as they move. This method requires more effort than the conventional 'open table' game, but is rewarding in that it is much more nerve-wracking, for the players and puts a premium on stalking the opponent.
C) A lot of six-sided dice, tape-measures, and the cards needed for the movement deck. Each player has 1-6 index cards, inscribed with his or her name, description or whatever, shuffled into a deck, along with three cards marked 'herds wandering' and one marked 'wind change'. When this last card comes up, not only does the wind, er, change, but the deck is reshuffled whether everyone has had their turn or not.
Now, hunters and wild beasties vary a great deal in skill and general dangerousness. Let's divide the humans into five classes, each having a factor known as 'Busheraft', (1-5), which determines, well, a lot, like morale and shooting and fistfighting with crocodiles etc.
Hunters:
5: Extremely skilled, indeed legendary
4: Skilled
3: Most Africans and Europeans
new to Africa but knows the outdoors.
2: Recruits, porters, neophytes, and hopeless imbecile
who's paid a fortune to come out and murder wildlife
1: Bloody usely character
Now, according to how things go over the course of the game, players can get promoted or demoted. The object is to build a reputation as a great hunter, by successful kills, bravery in face of danger, and generally not fouling things up. This last consists of missing the target altogether, wounding dangerous animals without killing them so they are simply angrier and less good company than before, running away (especially when seen to do so) and generally failing to live up to gentlemanly standards, You are trying to gain Reputation Points (R-Ps), which may give you more cards to move on, improve your Bushcraft, and generally instill manly confidence in you as you sit around the campfire lying about your exploits. Of course, losing RPs has the precise opposite effect. Interestingly enough, the same mechanism applies to the animals, though with different expectations as to what makes you, say, a widely admired hippopotamus.
Each player starts with a number of cards equal to their Bushcraft factor, which may go up or down. Gain a card for each 100 R-Ps earned, and vice versa - limit being six cards for Allan Quatermain on a good day.
| Type | Speed | Attack Dice | Hits | Bush Craft |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lion | 1/3/5 | 6 | 10 | 5 |
| Elephant | 1/3/5 | 12 | 20 | 4 |
| Rhino | 1/3/5 | 8 | 15 | 2 |
| Hippo | 1/2/3 | 6 | 10 | 2 |
| Leopard | 1/3/6 | 4 | 8 | 5 |
| Cheetah | 1/3/8 | 3 | 6 | 5 |
| Buffalo | 1/3/5 | 8 | 15 | 4 |
CARD SEQUENCE
When your card comes up, state your intentions to move, aim, shoot etc, and do so. All humans must be placed on the board, but animals may be concealed, and only revealed when detected by stalking, accidental showing themselves, or deliberately revealing themselves in all their splendour.
MOVEMENT
You can creep, you can walk and you can run. For most humans this is marked '1/2/3', which means 1d6" stalking carefully, 2d6" walking normally, and 3D6" running like a maniac. Animals usually get more dice in the walking and, especially, running department see that cheetah go 8 D6"! Half speed in very rough country, or shallow water. Deep water is impassible for armed men, and can only be crossed at fords, by boat, or desperate swimming (1D6" per turn, and watch for crocodiles).
If any of those dice for movement come up a '6', roll 1D6 against your Bushcraft, equal or less and you are fine, but exceed it and you've had an accident of some kind while moving through the dense bush/ sultry rainforest/perfectly open clearing. Roll a D6:
1) Fell in a pit, trap or hole - take 1D6 hits damage, lose 20 RPs
2) Disturbed a scorpion - roll against Bushcraft - fail, lose 1D6 hits damage, and 10 RPs.
3) Twisted ankle. Half speed through current deck of cards. Lose 10 RPs.
4) Stepped on a snake! 1-3 it's harmless, no damage, 4-6 it's lethal. 1D6 - Bushcraft damage (because the old hand can suck out the poison). Lose that number of RPs x 2 unless you sucked it all out, then gain 20 RPs. Lose same damage again on next card as poison spreads, If still alive, find doctor now --
5) Stepped on a branch - roll against Bushcraft, fail & everyone within 10" knows you are
there. Lose 5 RPs.
6) Boot comes off Europeans only. 50% of recovering it if move less than 3" this turn
Otherwise, half speed from now on until you get back to camp Lose 10 RPs
None of this applies to animals, who are assumed to have more sense, except for my cat Cameo who sets her tail alight and falls in the toilet.
CONCEALMENT & STALKING
"No African beast can smell worth a damn -- more rubbish written about animals' sense of
smell than anything else."
Look at your movement dice, comparing each of them to the figure's Bushcraft rating. If all of them are equal or less than the Bushcraft, the figure is aware of anyone or anything moving within 6" of himself if either he or it are in cover, 24" otherwise. Half that distance for animals sitting quietly (!) So, if you are stalking you need to pass on only one die, but all three if running, Animals who fail this test are revealed and placed on the board for this turn, but may 'disappear' again next card.
FOLLOWING SPOOR Or "Don't step n the hippo poop!"
This part is hard to write rules for in an open-table kind of game, though it would be easier for an umpire-run double-blind kind of game. Basically, the hunter tries to follow the animal's trail, which requires a certain talent, ideally without the animal knowing it. If the animal is wounded, there would be 'blood-spoor' along its path. If you have really honest players, you might require the animal players inform each hunter that passes his Bushcraft role not only if there are animals nearby, but if there is a trail, and which way it goes. The hunter can then follow it freely until next turn, when he gets the chance to lose the trail completely once again. Blood spoor can essentially be spotted by anyone who isn't a complete idiot - maybe roll 3 D6 vs Bushcraft, and if the hunter passes any of them at all, he spots the trail.
SHOOTING
Sighting carefully, I saw the bullet strike an ant-heap about two hundred yards
beyond the lioness, but in a good line, perhaps two or three inches too high.
A character may shoot once or more on his own turn, and possibly fire again on someone else's turn if that someone is trying to, say, maul them to death. The object is to get as good, clear a shot as possible, which means getting as many dice as you are entitled to in search of Sixes. You want as many of them as you can get. If, when you've checked the range, cover etc the umpire (or other players, own honesty etc) declares the shot to be less good than you'd hoped, you can elect not to fire - I know, this is different from all those other games - because you will be penalised for bad shooting, but not for not shooting at all.
| RANGES | SHORT | LONG | SHOTS/TURN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spear | 3 | 6 | 1 |
| Arrow | 5 | 10 | 2 impact x 1/2 at long range |
| Pistol | 3 | 6 | 3 |
| Trade musket | 5 | 10 | 1 |
| Matchlock | 5 | 12 | 1/2 |
| Military Rifle | 10 | 20 | 3 |
| Express Rifle | 20 | 40 | 2 |
| Shotgun | 4 | 8 | 2 impact x 2 at close range* |
| BUSHCRAFT | firer is moving A+ / A / B / C | firer is
standing A+ / A / B / C |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 8/5/4/3 | 15/10/8/6 |
| 4 | 6/4/3/2 | 12/ 8/ 6/4 |
| 3 | 4/3/2/1 | 8/6/4/2 |
| 2 | -/2/1/- | -/4/2/1 |
| 1 | -/1/-/- | -/2/1/- |
A+ = a really wonderful shot, in the open at close range, with a really accurate weapon. Those of Bushcraft 2 or less get no benefit from such weapons, and only 4 & 5 can really use them well.
A - a really wonderful shot at close range, but without the magnificent gun, or a grade B shot using the aforesaid weapon.
B= open clear shot at long range or close shot partially obscured by cover, or grade C shot with precision toy.
C= close shot but significant cover or long shot partially obscured.
D= does not exist for our purposes.
A running or other difficult target takes the shot down one category.
An emergency shot against a charging target is always a grade C shot, because even the coollest marksman can flinch.
What you want is SIXES!
6= WOUND, D6 points damage
66= SERIOUS WOUND, 2 D6 damage, will kill most things.
666= AUTOMATIC PERFECT KILL, as well as being the number of the beast, as it saith in
Revelation. Whatever it was, it falls over dead.
If the number of '1's rolled exceeds the number of 6s, it's a misfire, which does not count as a miss as regards your esteemed reputation.
ANIMAL REACTION
Herd type animals essentially run away at anything that frightens them. The ones we are interested in - lions, bull elephants, rhinos etc - don't feel this way about it at all. A wounded beast rolls a D6 1,2) Move away from the shooter, towards cover, and lie up there. 3,4) either halt or move around the shooter 5,6) immediately charge.
Deduct 1 if the animal has lost 50% damage points - it's hurt and it knows it.
MORALE
If something is coming at you right now, roll against Bushcraft. Pass, and you are free to...what? See 'Emergency reaction' if you need to be suddenly active. If you don't, carry on like a gentleman. Fail by one - freeze this turn and stare aghast as the beast rushes onward to discuss the matter (see 'melee'). Fail by two or more, bolt like a bunny 3 D6 towards cover, no defence if it outpaces you, Lions can't get up trees, or not very far. Or can they?
Umpire can demand a morale check whenever it seems appropriate.
EMERGENCY REACTION
"Still he came on and was.fifteen yards qf me, when I pulled back the bolt qf my rifle --
only to discover to my horror that the magazine was empty --"'
You've passed your morale roll. What now? If a fierce animal is coming at you in an unfriendly fashion you may want to
- Take a gun from your bearer
- Reload in a real hurry!
- Shoot once at the enemy!
- Shoot once again at the angry beastie!
- Dodge 1/2 D6- to left or right- really only good against rhinos.
- Run 2 D6- away!
- Climb a tree
You can attempt up to three of these, naming each action in succession and rolling vs. Bushcraft. However, if you fail one, that's it. You are stuck in position until your next card.
MELEE
Chances are, you shouldn't be deliberately wrestling with wild animals, but, hey, they are more than willing in this game, Roll 1-5 D6 according to your Bushcraft. The animal rolls, what might be a lot more dice Look for sixes. First six on either side counteracts one. and one only, on the other. Roll each six again and total points as damage hits Again, people can only take their Bushcraft number (it doesn't take a lot to kill a Hindu platelayer, I tell you). Surviving humans have their bushcraft reduced by the damage inflicted for melee but not for other activities, but wounded animals continue to fight with all dice until killed or choosing to break off an ongoing melee, Fights are one-on-one unless the figures are in base-to base contact, in which case the dice can be combined. A man who is running away due to morale failure cannot fight back on the first turn of combat, but, if not killed, will fight more determinedly from then on.
WIND DIRECTION
Twirl a pencil or something to determine initial wind direction, Whenever the 'wind changes card comes up, roll a D6
- 1= 90 left
2,3 = 45 left
4,5 = 45 right
6 = 90 left.
All animals downwind of the humans know of their presence, and will act accordingly, usually by moving away.
REPUTATION (this being the main point for the hunters, though of less interest to the animals.)
GOOD THINGS ( if you are not the animal)
Killing an animal with a rifle = animal's hit points = RPs
Killing an animal with a rifle with One shot = animal's hit points x 2 = RPs
Killing an animal with a rifle, one perfect shot (666) = animal's hit points x 4 = RPs
Killing an animal with a spear, bow or in melee= animal's hit points x 3 = R-Ps
Saving a native / foreigner / member of working classes from death = 10 PPs
Saving an English gentleman, really rich foreigner, or Teddy Roosevelt = 30 RPs
General acts of heroism ~ umpire's or player groups choice RPs
Telling good story about it afterwards over brandy & cigars = umpire's or player groups
choice RPs
BAD THINGS
Being killed or wounded in unheroic circumstances = 1/2 your current RPs
Missing the target = -10 RPs per miss
Wounding an animal and failing to track it personally = -20 R-Ps
Shooting baby animals / fellow hunters / self = -50 RPs
Running away from charging animal = 30- animal's hit pts RPs (because it's more excusable
to run from an elephant than a zebra)
General acts of cowardice = umpire's or player groups choice R-Ps
Unconvincing storytelling around camp fire umpire's or player groups choice R-Ps
ANIMAL
VICTORIES
I think we can assume that the beasts of the field do not operate on the same code of
conduct as those chaps in the solar topees, but is it just too anthropomorphic to think that maybe big Simba sunning himself on a rock knows that he did well by eating the little human with the loud stick and the chewy cloth covering, especially compared with the usual morsels that just run off screaming? Well, why not?
Gain the victim's Bushcraft x 20 RPs for each kill, Or 30 if you actually carry them
off to your lair for later snacking. This only applies to carnivores of course, no rhino will desert his or her vegetarian diet for a few extra points. No rhino would have the slightest idea what we were talking about.
FIGURES ETC/
My hunters, bearers and porters are from the Foundry Darkest Africa range, with a few of the western 'townsmen' - the fellows with rifles and shotguns but no chaps or ten gallon hats - painted in tans and drabs rather than Victorian black. British colonial officer types , and suitable westerners from other manufacturers have been added - I especially like the Redoubt Fred Burnaby figure. The Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company makes a line of hunters, some armed with very heavy weapons for dinosaur shooting, and some excellent African animals. Irregular Miniatures make nice animals, though a bit on the small side, as do Ral Partha. My own menagerie consists very largely of plastic zoo animals of appropriate size, found variously in high quality toy shops, cheap discount places (always sold in bulk with animals of different sizes) and 'nature' shops. They are all made in China and have generic names that vary wildly.
My most successful hauls were in an 'everything's a dollar' place in Atlanta - wonderful elephants for the price of a chocolate bar - and a Chinese dime store in Toronto, where kudu, zebra and wildebeeste each cost 25 cents Canadian - a veritable cornucopia of cheap plastic stuff. So, wherever you live, check the nasty plastic toys. My best bull elephants glow in the dark under their coats of paint! Do beware though, plastic animals will take paint (wash 'em in dishwashing liquid first, spray black, drybrush, varnish) but some of the rubber / vinyl toys are very unwilling to take allow paint to ever dry.
THE CODE OF THE GENTLEMAN HUNTER
By the late nineteenth century certain rules of sportsmanship were accepted, which defined the gentleman from the mere slaughterer of wildlife. Whereas an earlier generation had blasted away wantonly at almost anything that moved, the unwritten code made some things obligatory, and others completely unacceptable.
1) A good, single shot is better than a dozen fired into a target.
2) Adult males of most species were the legitimate target, with females being permitted only if they were threatening the hunter. Pregnant or nursing females were an especial no-no, as were youngsters. Lionesses and female leopards were at least partially exempt from this, as potential maneaters.
3) It is considered poor form to let African servants do the shooting, except to assist in times of great danger Letting them shoot and then counting their kills as part of your 'bag' is especially unsporting.
4) Moderation is a good thing.
5) There is a hierarchy of animals worthy of the hunter. Lion and elephant stand at the top, with leopards, and buffalo next, then rhino (but remember the white rhino is really scarce, Mr Rooseveldt, oh, you've shot five --). Antelope etc are shot as trophies, and 'for the pot' - but this isn't a game about trophies or lunch, but about danger - shooting hippos is not considered very sporting, though perhaps necessary, and nobody wants to be known as a great crocodile hunter. Hyena get you no credit whatsoever as a sporting thing.
6) Wounded animals must be tracked, at whatever cost, and finished off This was considered not only humane to the animal, but also to anyone else that might meet an angry injured creature with a grudge to settle later on.
SOME HUNTERS OF NOTE
The earliest European hunters in Africa, such as William Cornwallis Harris, William Cotton Oswell and the deranged and scoundrelly Scot, Roualeyn Gordon Cumming, hunted from horseback using muzzle loading weapons. As the century progressed, the hunting frontier moved beyond the high grasslands of southern Africa - since the herds had been comprehensively massacred in much of the south - into the tsetse-fly belt of central and east Africa, where it was necessary to hunt on foot, often in dense bush. Some of the best-known hunters of the period 1870-1930 are as follows:
Frederick Courteney Selous (1851-1916) hunted in the south African bush country from 1871, making a reputation not only as a hunter but as a naturalist. A brave, resilient and much respected figure, he wrote a number of successful books and was an early advocate of wildlife conservation. Though in his sixties, he volunteered to serve in East Africa in WWI, where he was killed by a sniper while leading his company.
William Finaughty (1843-?) made a living as an ivory hunter in Matabeleland in the 1860s70s. He killed 53 elephants in a five-month period, including 10 in one day. He later settled as a farmer in Rhodesia. Finaughty considered buffalo far more dangerous than elephants.
Arthur Neumann (1850-1907) went out to Africa at 18. He served in the Zulu War and with the Swaziland police, but elephant hunting was his forte first in the Transvaal and then in Kenya. Solitary, shy and depressive, Neumann considered his shooting an economic concern rather than a sporting activity, yet could say of his prey, --- him I worship --- nothing else thrills me, but the spell of the elephant is as potent as ever " He killed hundreds. Eventually, depressed, he shot himself.
Chauncey Hugh Stigand (1875-1919) was a fearless, hearty, perhaps somewhat unimaginative soldier who hunted in East Africa from 1900 until his death while leading a punitive expedition against a Dinka clan. He wrote several books on hunting, including a 'how-to' guide with Dennis Lyell.
James Sutherland (1876-1932) was a physical fitness enthusiast and prizefighter who fought in the Boer War, the Maji Maji Rebellion (where he received an Iron Cross), then on the other side as an intelligence agent in WWI. His real love was elephant hunting, and he followed the herds into his fifties, through failing eyesight and failing ivory prices.
Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell, known as 'Karamojo' (1880-1951) was perhaps the finest marksmen of all the African hunters. A born adventurer, he spent time in the klondyke gold fields, served in the Boer War, before taking off for Uganda to become an ivory hunter. From 1902-7 he hunted in the wild Karamojo country, perfecting a technique of single shot killing with a light rifle aimed precisely according to his field studies of elephant bone structure. Later he poached elephants in the Lado Enclave area claimed by the Belgians. He served in WWI as a pilot. In later life he retired to Scotland to write and illustrate.
Cecily and Agnes Herbert were two English cousins who - against the social mores of the time - undertook their own four month shooting safari in Somaliland in 1907. Finding themselves in competition with a rival expedition of Indian army officers, the two women consistently outperformed the male opposition. When the Somali butler absconded with a valuable rifle, Agnes took after him on a camel and halted his flight with a warning shot, bringing him back chastened.
There were many others worthy of note, some sympathetic, others Simply Psychopathic, the writer Dennis Lyell, the quiet Scot J.A. Hunter, the 'Out of Africa' characters Denys FinchHatton and Bror Blixen, the famous clients such as Teddy Rooseveldt and later Ernest Hemingway. Many wrote of their experiences. Some wished they'd never killed an animal.
ON SPORTING GUNS
Hunting literature is full of references to the weapons being used. Much of this is confusing to those of us who aren't expecting a subscription to Guns and Ammo magazine for our birthday. First of all, while settlers, traders, Boer farmers and others did use ordinary military and civilian rifles of the common-or-garden variety to hunt game, the professional hunters and the wealthy sportsman types employed incredibly expensive, hand-made weapons made by a small group of custom gunmakers. These weapons were beautifully balanced, exquisitely designed and engineered pieces with precisely accurate sights. They cost the earth, and still do; a .577 Nitro Express by Rigby, which cost 64 pounds sterling in 1901, cost about the same as one of the less ostentatious Porsches ninety years later. Indeed, seeing these sporting guns as exotic sports cars compared with the Fords and Volkswagens of the military issue rifles - practical, inexpensive and reliable but not designed for high performance - is probably a reasonable way of looking at it.
From the mid-century, the classic hunting rifle was the breech-loading Double Express rifle, with twin locks and barrels set side-by-side, looking to most of us like a shotgun. These came in a variety of sizes, measured either by 'bore' (weight of shot to the pound, so that a 10 bore fired a 1.6 oz ball and a 4 bore a massive 4 ounce ball) or by diameter of the bullet. Using black powder, they were heavy things - a big elephant gun like a 577 Westley Richards double weighed 13 lbs. while the bigger .600 came in at 16 lbs Smaller rifles used for lion etc were still pretty big - 450 or so. The best-known British gunmakers were Holland & Holland of London, Purdey, Rigby, Fraser of Edinburgh and Gibbs of Bristol. Some hunters had their own preferences ' Selous, who had begun with some fearful 4 bore elephant guns known as 'Roers', which damaged his shoulder permanently, later had his choice of the best, and particularly liked a Henry .450 Express.
The invention of smokeless propellants c. 1890 brought in lighter weapons and smaller calibres - .256,.275,.303 etc. Sporting versions of military magazine rifles were made, often reworked as custom items by the elite gunmakers. Neumann used a .256 Marmlicher as his 'light rifle', for everything except elephants, for which he had a .577 Gibbs, a Holland & Holland 10 bore, and later a .450 Rigby. Sutherland used a .577 Nitro Express by Westley Richards, with a .318 light rifle. Karamojo Bell received a Marmlicher-Schoenauer .256, reworked by Danile Fraser in Scotland, which weighed only 5 lbs.
Light rifles were considered more accurate at a distance, but most shooters considered 200 yards to be pretty long range for the kind of accurate marksmanship they were after; Oswell had believed in close shots at 20-30 yards, and Teddy Rooseveldt's wild longdistance shooting on his African safari of 1909 caused a certain amount of sniffiness You were supposed to get close.
Shotguns might be used on light targets, including leopard, but were considered useless against anything with heavy bones or tough hide. Foran tells one story about using a shotgun with birdshot against a rhino, barely tickling it, but surprising it with the noise.
HOW TO ACT LIKE A WILD ANIMAL
Basic stuff. African wildlife took some time to work out that men with load firesticks ought to be avoided as much as possible, but by the high Victorian period, almost all animals had decided that the scent of man was a very bad aroma. At the same time, the more dangerous animals came to the conclusion that an aggressive response to threats was the best policy, and by 1900 or so, hunters were observing that elephants were more inclined to charge on sight, and lions more likely to stalk the humans rather than ignore them. Wounded animals are always dangerous - even the kind that were generally very passive - and, of course, females are obsessive about the safety of their young; anyone foolish enough to get between the mother and offspring can expect really bad things to happen.
Lions are cautious predators, usually hunting after dark and lying up in cover during daylight hours, They are wary of hunters, and will avoid them by stealth if at all possible. Lions may be found 1) as solitary animals, usually males, 2) female prides, often with cubs, 'bachelor' prides of males. Prides consist of 3-8 animals for our purposes. A wounded lion is very dangerous; it may attack instantly, or slink away to dense cover, from which it will attack any pursuers. Lions tend to make a grunt prior to a charge, which may help locate them. The charge is often very low to the ground rather than a leap, and almost impossible to stop once launched.
Elephants are huge, intelligent creatures with excellent hearing and sense of smell, but somewhat poor eyesight. They might be found as 1) solitary males, 2) female-led family groups, 3) family groups led by an old bull, or 4) bachelor herds. Of these, the first and last are most likely to become 'rogue', belligerent for no obvious reason. In general, elephants would respond to the smell and sound of man by drifting downwind, but an aggressive elephant, once wounded, would charge, and quite possibly his friends would join in. Indeed, while a direct kill might not upset a herd, the wounding of a member might bring all adult elephants - cows as well as bulls - into violent attack. Elephants kill less with their tusks than by stomping and by picking up the hapless human in their trunks and using them as a drumstick or one-way boomerang.
Rhinos are ancient creatures, very short-sighted and unintelligent, whose attack - usually when wounded or otherwise provoked - is ferocious but easily avoided by the wary human. They just keep on going.
Hippos are also prehistoric animals, very dangerous in the water. Not carnivorous, but very touchy about territorial issues, hippos may attack boats that get too close, taking tremendous bites out of well, anything. Hippos often feed at night some distance from water, and see anything obstructing their path back to the river / lake etc as a threat to be dealt with. Nothing personal.
Crocodiles are in many ways the most dangerous of African predators. Primeval, crafty, slow until they pounce, they do not kill with the jaws, but grip the prey and drag it down 'til it drowns - very nasty. Then they let it get good and mushy before dining. Yum. You've seen the old Tarzan films. May work in groups, but inclined to eat wounded friends rather than help them. Can't find that endearing.
Leopards are smaller than lion, very crafty, who kill for the sheer joy of it all. Often solitary, their attack is less likely to be instantly deadly than larger animals, but they are more than happy to tussle until they win. A wounded leopard is widely considered the most lethal of opponents. They seem to think of humans as just another kind of tasty monkey.
Cheetahs are immensely fast carnivores, like leopard but considerably smaller, and not generally dangerous to man because, well, we are too damned big to bother. Still, no reason we shouldn't have a particularly aggressive one to deal with.
Buffalo are widely regarded as more dangerous than elephant, owing to several factors. Immensely strong and ornery, able to keep going after serious wounds with heavy artillery, and very prone to seek out those who are bothering them. They will pummel you and roll you into a spot on the ground. So I'm told.
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© Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum
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